The 50 people who wrecked Britain.

What are we voting on?

some of these are otm

Webonymous, obv

"an emblem of cultural defeatism"

ageing non-revolutionary

OMG WHAT A BITCH

Gordon Brown ("Prime Minister? Prime culprit, more like.")

amirite?

EastEnders bastes Britain in the juices of misery, violence and nostalgia

excellent

ageing non-revolutionary

i.e. everyone in the UK

Are we voting for the best or worst?

well, otm in that they're not helping, but i wouldn't describe britain as wrecked and letts seems to be fairly shockfactor in his pronouncements

oh wait it's the daily mail hi dere

the suggestion of john mcenroe, for instance, is completely and unforgivably batshit

We will live with his mistakes until the weeds of Doomsday lift their tendrils and bring man's u

I MUST KNOW HOW THIS ENDS. THE TENSION IS KILLING ME.

Jon "you've GOT to be shitting me! McEnroe

Letts starts the long overdue Roland Rat backlash.

Note that most of the right wingers on the list are ineffectual dingbats who made no deep impression on anyone whatsoever

xpost:

"We will live with his mistakes until the weeds of Doomsday lift their tendrils and bring man's ugly brickwork cascading back down to earth."

Note that most of the right wingers on the list are ineffectual dingbats who made no deep impression on anyone whatsoever

Like Thatcher?

Most I said

saatchi, thatcher, blair, murdoch, all very much agreed

I mean, attempting to be politically balanced by including Rhodes Boyson?

9 Anthony Crosland

Galloping egalitarianism has made few mistakes more destructive, more thumpingly counter-productive, than the introduction of comprehensive schools.

They first appeared in the 1950s but their greatest champion - the man who well and truly buggered up the lives of millions of British children, their parents and teachers - was Anthony Crosland.

It was during Crosland's time as Education Secretary from 1965-7 that comprehensives received their biggest push.

If only Crosland had understood the magnitude of his mistake. As it is, he went to his grave sourly convinced that his policies were right.

Sewn as tight into his certitude as a tobogganist into his thermal skimpies, he reportedly swore that: 'If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f***ing grammar school in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.'

He didn't quite manage that but he did manage to destroy a fair few of them, not to mention the secondary moderns which were reconstituted in the new comprehensive mode.

Crosland's stupid system, driven by a vindictive hatred of elitism, has done the very opposite of what he intended. Our state schools are a stagnant pond. Private schools have never been busier.

If he wasn't already dead, it would be tempting to strangle the idiot.

This is the one that genuinely annoys me.

Haha, "Merciless demander of provable fact".

the Health And Safety At Work Act did ruin Britain, it's true, but this is the call for all employment-related legislation in the 20th century. our chimneys have never been so dirty; our diamond mines never emptier of Chinese slave labour.

Does he mean "scientist"?

xpost to self

Re: how to vote - I voted for the one that instantly filled me with the greatest sense of twisted, impotent, Mail-worthy rage when reading down the list. (The "short-termist dunderhead", then.)

beeching, archer, westwood, all not helping

saatchi, thatcher, blair, murdoch, all very much agreed

Yeah, but Murdoch's only in there for wrecking the Times letter page!

Bit disappointed the Americans haven't turned up to point and laugh yet.

at least he doesn't suggest david beckham, if he did i'd be marching on mail towers with an axe

Thatcher & Murdoch = lower class parvenus, terribly useful but one must hold one's nose a bit

I think Murdoch's wrecked America more, though the reasons why I can't quite think of right now

oh wait, most of these are probably important left-wing figures i know nothing about

in which case, BAD Letts. Down. Down! BAD LETTS

Maurice 'Maus' Gatsonides ("invented the speed camera")

ok libertarian agenda, fuck this guy

Bit disappointed the Americans haven't turned up to point and laugh yet.

oh we're here, don't worry

I can't narrow this guy's agenda down to any one thing really, which is kind of fascinating and unusual for the Mail.

xpost

EastEnders bastes Britain in the juices of misery, violence and nostalgia, all in the name of public broadcasting. Public wrist-slitting, more like.

This depressing soap was devised in 1983 by the late drama producer Julia Smith. She set out to portray London as it was at the time.

What an appalling place London during the middle Thatcher years must have been.

Twenty-five years on, we are still being subjected to the basic recipe of East London disgruntlement and selfishness, long after the caravan moved on, long after the white working-class shown in these plots was overwhelmed by other cultural identities.

The characters on EastEnders still talk cockney, even though younger Londoners long ago took up a rap-music, street jungle patois, which is heavily black American in tone.

You seldom hear that sort of dude talk on EastEnders. Barbara Windsor and P. Diddy don't exactly mix, I guess.

Julia Smith cannot be held directly accountable for this, not least because she died in 1997, but she created a programme which has become a terrible vehicle for public 'awareness'.

Homophobia, drug addiction, Aids, cot death, domestic violence, euthanasia, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, divorce stress, rape - all have been flung into the pot.

Perhaps it is no wonder the characters are so down in the dumps. Is it not time they were put out of their misery?

So he's saying that EastEnders should reflect multicultural Britain rather than pine for the olden days?

Health And Safety At Work Act did ruin Britain

Britain not ruined but please elucidate further (without recourse to Daily Mail/Express/politicalcorrectnessgonemad.com).

His agenda is that he wants to make as much cash from his crappy book and is therefore trying to spread his net a bit wider than the usual DM crapola with a few shockhorror inclusions, i.e Thatcher.

I can't narrow this guy's agenda down to any one thing really, which is kind of fascinating and unusual for the Mail

Run-of-mill snobbish, xenophobic, right wing hack... agenda?

Thatcher's not a shock, lots of right wing wing cunts found her distasteful

It's Diana which is the more incongurous inclusion for me.

Why? Diana is a major hate figure for run-of-mill snobbish, xenophobic, right wing hacks

None of these are remotely surprising if you pay attention to the way the Daily Mail actually covers politics.

See Peter Hitchens for proof

I forgot "misogynistic" in that list

Ned T, you have to understand that part of the workforce has to be expendable for the economy to thrive. if we weren't buried in all this red BLAH BLAH BRUSSELS BLAH then good sorts would have a bit more change in their pockets and there wopuld be fewer oiks cluttering up the roads in their "hatchbacks".

For those non-Brit readers who may not have seen the scrumptious Mr Letts...
http://www.currybet.net/images/blog/20050715mail1.jpg

fuck ok

I hate you, the BBC doesn't

The big white space under that caption is like virgin snow, just waiting for someone to trample over it with the words 'Because you're a cunt'.

that has the makings of a great personal ad.

GO CRY EMO KID

I feel really shitty for saying "some of those are otm" now, without having checked out where this guy's coming from

too late, the BBC hates you already

What I want to know is, who would marry him?

... not here I mean

Of course, you meant "Of The Moment" OTM, right?

(xpost the archbishop of canterbury?)

= left wing Muslim

The Tory politicians on his list are included "more in sorrow than in anger", usually by virtue of a single "unfortunate misjudgment".

And all Prime Ministers from Harold Wilson onwards are included - with one exception. Step forward, blameless John Major!

I kind've agree that Tim Westwood is a tosser tho

Oh, the actual article about why the BBC hates him is amazing. Takes one sentence from a Beeb report and runs with it. You've got to give him something for his ability to produce this stuff out of nothing.

No I don't, he gets paid by someone else...

Is there another Quentin Letts? One who is paid by the BBC to appear periodically on This Week?

You won't be surprised to learn he hates rap music. So why isn't Derek B on the list?

His evident knowledge on all things "street" qualifies him well to comment on hip hop.

I presume BBC weather presenter Helen Willets is only on the list as she rebuffed his attentions.

I suggested as much upthread

But can't be as Quentin Letts is white, middle class, loves his wife

I think that was on the other thread.

...that you suggested that...

I missed the other thread, still great minds think alike etc

One vote for John McEnroe, on the questionable assumption that you've to vote for your favourite. I can't think of a single way in which Britain is worse for his presence

He has been rewarded for being a BAD SPORT.

Let me state immediately, therefore, that my name is Quentin Letts, and I am a male, 42-year-old, member of the English middle class. I would also like taken into account certain other flaws that plainly make me an unsatisfactory member of Blairite Britain.
I love my wife, am white, own my rural home, do not beat my children (well, not much) and happen to enjoy traditional TV sitcoms - particularly anything starring Geoffrey Palmer. Oh, and I hate rap music.

lol victimhood

This is how Nazi Germany started

Can anyone remember what thread had that c+p from Ethan called something like "the conservative you love to hate!" and it was just loads of fairly random and not specifically conservative stuff about liking big tits and steak?

SO-CALLED BLAIRS GOVERNMENT ABOLISHED "AS TIME GOES BY"

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS NANNY STATISM GONE MAD!!!

John major probably doesn't make the list for persuading the BBC to continue making new episodes of Allo Allo well into his term in Office

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Just_Good_Friends_-_title_screen.jpg

A lonely nation turns its eyes to you

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00334/ed_imgSNF1077M_265_334154a.jpg

Why does the BBC hate me?

the BBC made an ill advised attempt to revive reggie perrin for you, what more do you want, Blood?

um, what has he been in that's been filmed within the past 15 years?

xpost They Did? blimey...

(grumpily) A few drops would be nice.

*audience laughter*

He was in Doctor Who!

was his day slightly inconvenianced?

Not a traditional britisho sitcom, then?

Surprised he didn't mention Terry and June as two people who did their best to save/mend the broken britain. Unifying the nation in the common hope that we can all move to Surbiton and call the boss "sir" because he has been knighted....

the BBC made an ill advised attempt to revive reggie perrin for you, what more do you want, Blood?

If his comments on EastEnders are anything to go by, I don't think he appreciates being addressed as "blood".

if you really want to know, 'as time goes by' finished in 2005.

Good to see our own Carmody editing Letts' Wiki page (changed "satirical Peterborough column" to "Peterborough gossip column").

Geoffrey Palmer is 81! Well done that man.

if you really want to know, 'as time goes by' finished in 2005.

That's when EU directives on supression of middle-class sitcoms were first introduced in the UK

Or Vursprung Durch Technik as they say in Germany...

last time I saw Geoffrey Palmer on the telly, he was in the posh seats at the Emirates, wearing a Barbour jacket and cheering on Arsenal.

posh seats at the Emirates

Tautology amirite

nah she means the ones with wifi access and headrests

Even Quentin Letts would feel at home at the Emirates

... until he looked out on the pitch and saw all those coloured chaps running around

Let me state immediately, therefore, that my name is Quentin Letts, and I am a male, 42-year-old, member of the English middle class. I would also like taken into account certain other flaws that plainly make me an unsatisfactory member of Blairite Britain.

I've never even heard of this guy. He's a complete fucktard? Who is he? What's he done?

Front row, innit? Cost even more lots of money than the ones right up the back, I imagine.

xposts

I'm an American who is officially laughing at this craptastic list.

Some days I can't believe I'm moving to London, but there's as many fuckwits here, to be sure. (I live in Toronto, for now.)

I voted Ed Balls just for the hell of it.

Britain ain't so bad.

He is wrong about Jimmy Saville, he's awesome.

Going off on a tangent, one thing I will miss if Cameron etc. get in is the impotent rage of the right. As someone who was no fan of the Major years (regardless of what Blair/Brown ended up being), seeing the Daily Mail and the Have Your Say mob squirm has endlessly entertaining

I suppose when they get in again they'll be telling us how the last ten years were just an aberation to 'normal traditional common sense British' values.

Where we go from there remains to be seen but I am guessing that just as Obama might find out in the states, this isn't ain't a great time to be in power what with the economy in the shitbin.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I suppose when they get in again they'll be telling us how the last ten years were just an aberation to 'normal traditional common sense British' values.

I doubt that cameron will do enough to please those miserablist fuckers.

I presume we are to vote for the person who most effectively and comepletely wrecked Britain. If so, Thatcher in a landlslide.

how the hell did I not know there was a british politician named "Edward Balls"

Tom - even better, he has been an influential figure in our economy.

I'm happy to belong to a majority that is tolerant and generous to its minorities.

!!!!!!!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lmao

i wonder, if tony blair was a tory would he have gotten more of the votes he deserved?

With Thatcher in the poll, nobody else deserved to get even one vote

proportional representation- once it was clear she was going to win, second preferences should have filtered down.

It's first past the post in the good old United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!

Ed Balls was robbed.

I liked how the Independent said Noman Lamont was the second greatest Britain (ever? or maybe of the last 100 years).